


Hear the Cries of Seraphim

by theprydonian_archivist



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bondage, Episode: s03e11 Utopia, Episode: s03e12 The Sound of Drums, Episode: s03e13 Last of the Time Lords, Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-01
Updated: 2008-02-29
Packaged: 2018-07-15 01:15:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7199489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theprydonian_archivist/pseuds/theprydonian_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Last of the Time Lords, AU with a look at angels and devils.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Seraph

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Versaphile, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Prydonian](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Prydonian). Deciding that it needed to have a more long-term home, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact the e-mail address on [The Prydonian collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/theprydonian/profile).

  
_‘These angels have in themselves an inextinguishable light, and … perfectly enlighten others.’_

When the Master comes to, the first thing he notices is the wallpaper. Not only is it pink, it also has white stripes running vertically along it, intermittently pausing to give way to two ever-so-slightly-but-definitely-indiscriminately-different other shades of pink. It’s so disgustingly bright that it almost makes him want to vomit, but there are things much worse than horrific décor… that’s a cheering thought.

For a moment, everything is silent, and that’s even more terrifying than the shockingly bright colours that line the walls. Then the cacophony begins again, always the same rhythm, the same beat, a myriad of different drums that he can’t begin to relay through a single finger tap, but always to the same beat. Tappity-tap.

Things begin to spark to life again in his body, a tingling that starts at the very base of him, shivering its way up his legs, spine, neck. Spreading until his very being feels completely rejuvenated. He wonders what exactly has happened for him to be forced into awakening himself from a paralysed state… everything that has happened lately is something of a white blur in his memory, an empty n-space that is irritatingly irretrievable. He remembers that a) he’s not that daft human anymore and b) he’s in a new regeneration, something that is extremely obvious anyway, considering that it’s not often that you wake up with a new face resting on a pillow, but that’s about it. Everything that he tries to access around that time is a moot point.

As soon as he is sure that everything is in perfect working order again, the Master attempts to sit up. It is only then that he notices the slight difficulty in this action; in that he can’t seem to pull his wrists apart further than about thirty centimetres despite no visible barriers. Curious, he gathers his wrists again and draws the fingers of his left hand upwards, feeling along the bones of his right wrist. There, only slightly detectable, is a thin lump running around his wrist, just under the skin.

Magnetic handcuff implants.

In his throat, the Master begins to growl with irritation and anger at the lack of control he now seems to have over parts of his own body. Muttering something about how these things were banned on several planets a long time ago – and for good reason – he shuffles himself upwards so that he can survey the room.

It is _shockingly_ pink. Not only the walls, but the duvet of the bed he appears to be in, the pillows he is resting his back against, and the narrow desk that runs along one wall. Disrupting the disgusting pink wallpaper is a door painted in such a bright pink that it makes his eyes water, a glaringly white doorknob placed blatantly to one side. Well, if they (whoever _they_ were) _were_ going to leave their ‘prisoner’ in an unlocked _bright pink_ room, they shouldn’t trust him not to try to escape, now should they? Carefully taking the inability to use his hands as two separate tools into consideration, the Master swings around, plants his feet on the floor, and stands up.

It’s not so bad for the first five seconds, until he finds himself collapsed on the bed again, his head swimming painfully. Unperturbed, he tries again, succeeds in lasting more than a minute in a standing position and walks to the door. The moment the doorknob turns, however, there’s a loud buzzing noise, the sound of an alarm ringing in numerous empty corridors and an extremely solid, excruciatingly painful electric shock currents through his body.

He lets go of the doorknob, stumbles back a step and scowls at the door. Seconds later, there’s a rattling, the sound of numbers being punched into a keypad and the seemingly innocuous door opens. Standing in the doorway is the Doctor, a somewhat gleeful expression on his new regeneration’s face. (That’s something he remembers too. Suddenly the white space around his own regeneration from that old fool into this newer body begins to fill with certain aspects, placing the Doctor in situations that are white spaces in themselves, like the first few decoding clues of a code.)

‘Oh, hello! You’ve woken up then!’ The Doctor’s new body seems to talk only in exclamations, bubbly and excited, exactly the tone you’d expect a puppy to speak in. The Master just raises an eyebrow, lifts his wrists and waits. ‘Ohh… you don’t remember,’ the Doctor comments idly. ‘Well, we’ll get there in time, I’m sure you’ll remember most of it eventually.’

‘Most?’

‘W _ell_ , I did my best, but there’s bound to be some foggy bits. Besides, some things are best left unremembered, I think.’

The Master puts these at the top of the list of things that he _should_ remember. As fast as possible, in fact.

‘All you need to know is that you tried another of your schemes, I foiled it, and now you’re on my TARDIS because I’m not exactly about to let you go running off into the universe to try and destroy yet another civilisation.’ He grins inanely, and the Master just groans, partially because the Doctor’s overly cheerful voice is adding to the ever-growing nausea and partially because the horrible blinding colours mixed with the cacophony of drums are giving him a horrible headache.

The Doctor pulls out his sonic screwdriver (a new make, it might seem) and presses a button. There’s a snapping noise, and his wrists fall to his sides, the handcuff mechanism deactivated. For now.

‘So, what? You’re just going to… keep me?’ The words sound oddly familiar, and yet the white fog around that area seems to be extremely thick, places and faces coated in a thick layer of grey.

The Doctor nods slowly before turning to leave. ‘Tea?’

__

Seraphim, seraphim, you spread your wings,  
flying from blue, and into grey skies.  
Falling from grace, this one broken angel,  
tumbling from heavens and into these arms. 

 

~*~

On the table in the tearoom is a book. It’s a hardcopy book, with the word _‘Seraphim’_ etched into the spine. The Doctor knows, because he put it there before when the alarm went off telling him that a) the Master was awake, and b) the Master was trying to escape. Typical. Well, it’s not like he’d given him much choice, and the ironic joke that the TARDIS had played on him _was_ quite cruel. The décor in any room the Doctor put him in had _magically_ changed to the worst shades of pink ever imaginable (she’d taken quite a few ideas from Rose’s room it might seem, because they looked almost identical.)

Inside this book are descriptions of every angel that takes its place in Earth’s ‘Christian angelic hierarchy’, with a main focus on the Seraphim.

He’d found it in a second hand bookstore in the year 2007, hidden at the back of the racks behind the mystery and science fiction. It hadn’t been the content that had spurred him to buy the book, but the quote on the inside of the cover: _‘Thirdly we consider in fire the quality of clarity, or brightness; which signifies that these angels have in themselves an inextinguishable light, and that they also perfectly enlighten others.’ - Thomas Aquinas._ Well, that and the fact that he’d been forced to buy something in order to get access to the bathroom at the back of the store in which he strongly suspected was the base for a band of aliens bent on – yes, again - taking over Earth, and he’d figured he might as well get something substantial out of it.

It was, to tell you the truth, a rather boring book. But a few things had caught his interest and now the book sits on the table with a few book tabs in it (pink, he hadn’t been able to find his own so he’d had to go through Martha’s room, scavenging through the things she’d left behind and finding nothing before going into Rose’s room and grasping the unopened packet of pink tabs she’d apparently shoved in the bottom of her second drawer.) Across from this book is the Master, running his finger over the rim of the teacup and staring at him with death in his eyes.

Oh, this was going to be a _lot_ of fun. Part of the Doctor, that annoying dark part that keeps rearing its head more and more lately, reminding him vaguely and uncomfortably of the Valeyard, has suggested on more than one occasion that no one would have noticed if he had _accidentally_ left the Master on another empty planet so that he could figure out a way to escape by himself, go to another planet and try to take it over so the Doctor wouldn’t have to put up with him right away once he _did_ wake up. The Doctor had shoved that voice aside. That wasn’t who he was and besides, it was too late for that now.

Considering the man in front of him, the Doctor reaches over and begins to toy with the tabs that bookmark the pages. The Master begins to tap his fingers on the tabletop, staring at the Doctor. Sighing, the Doctor opens his mouth, attempting to wrap his mouth around the words he knows he has to say.

‘Basically… I programmed the TARDIS so that you could only enter the rooms that I assign, which are those that don’t have anything lethal or dangerous in them. The Console Room is open, but the console is locked to isomorphic controls so that only I can activate them.’ He clears his throat again, avoiding the Master’s eyes. ‘The magnetic bracelets are thought controlled too, so they’ll snap together the moment that I get a bit concerned about you. Um, they can also be electro-charged.’

‘Oh wonderful,’ the Master says snidely, voice laden with sarcasm. ‘How exciting is that?’ He pauses, eyes still fixed on the Doctor. ‘You know I’ll get out. I don’t care how long it takes, or what mistake I made in order to end up _here_ of all places, but I’ll get out.’

The Doctor sighs and flips open the book, his finger tracing down the lines until he finds where he was before the alarms sounded.

_.‘… there are two named angels that are especially well known due to their presence in the Greek and Hebrew Christian Bible. These are the archangel Michael and the angel most known for appearing before the Virgin Mary, Gabriel. Some have been known to add Lucifer to this list, however there is evidence to say that this is probably based only on mistranslation, as Lucifer’s position is that of a fallen angel…’_

There’s an annoyed growl from the Time Lord on the other side of the table who pushes away the full cup of tea, raises from the seat and exits the room.

_…spiralling from the heavens, condemned to suffer in hell for eternity…_


	2. Chapter One: Message Sent

It’s only after about six Earth weeks that the Master decides to surface. As soon as he enters the console room, the Doctor visibly flinches at the sound of the door opening, so accustomed to the usual lonely silence he’d been living in since… well… Martha left, really. The Master barely casts him a glance, but revels in the thrilling revelation that if one little door had been enough to shake the great, almighty Doctor, then destroying him completely shouldn’t be too hard.

‘I’ve been trying to remember.’

‘Hmm?’

‘The memories that you wiped out from my mind.’ The Master replies bitterly, glaring from the other side of the console. ‘I’ve been trying to repair them.’

‘And?’

‘I remember the Time War. I remember seeing the fall of Arcadia, seeing a blue police box dematerialising as soon as the planet had disintegrated into nothing. Coward.’

The Doctor’s face fills with pain, but he doesn’t say anything.

‘I ran too, ran as soon as that Dalek took control of the Cruciform.’ He winces, feeling that odd sense of _déjà vu_ again. ‘Far away… made myself human. I can remember all that, clear as day, remember all the stupid things that the idiot Professor Yana did, but where I get foggy is between the year one-hundred trillion and me waking up in a bed in your TARDIS.’

‘Professor Yana was not an idiot.’

The Master snorts. ‘Of course you’d say that, the great, wonderful Doctor.’

A sudden fizzing sound like radio static interrupts the Doctor’s wounded retort. The console room jolts erratically one way, the floor’s violent movement making the Master fall onto one of the seats that line the walls. ‘And I certainly remember this,’ he yells across the console. ‘Your TARDIS never did work properly.’

‘Be a good boy and shut up,’ retorts the Doctor, clinging to the pale blue-green console with one hand, a knee and a foot, while the other hand presses buttons on the scanner and tries to reach utterly un-reachable objects (that look suspiciously like junk) halfway around the orb.

As suddenly as it came, the turbulent storm stops, the console room calming as dust falls gently from the ceiling. There’s a pause, a wounded grumbling from the Doctor, who has now found himself unbalanced on the metal flooring, and the lights go off.

‘Now what have you done?’

The question comes from two mouths, meeting at the middle on a collision course and then finding their separate ways into the opposite person’s ears.

‘What have _I_ done?’ Asks the Master incredulously. ‘I haven’t been near the console of this piece of rubbish in a long time.’ He pauses. ‘Although… there are a considerable amount of things that I can’t remember, so…’

The Doctor growls from the floor, still recovering from his injured pride more than anything else. Clawing around the console he finds his way to his feet, pressing a button on the console so a small light illuminates the room, its source a remarkably torch-like lamp. The Master rubs at his eyes, attempting to adjust to the searing bright light that has suddenly attacked him.

‘The entire system is down.’ The Doctor lifts one hand to his face and rubs his cheek once before letting it drop back to the console again. ‘She’s not responding at all. _And_ , to make matters worse, I think all of our defences are down.’ He looks up across at the Master, realisation dawning in both their eyes. The Master takes a running start toward the doors, only to be intercepted by the Doctor and have his wrists find themselves suddenly snapped together. ‘Oh no you don’t,’ reprimands the Doctor softly. ‘ _Especially_ not out there.’

‘Why, what’s out there?’ The Master asks as he’s escorted back to the chair he was previously sitting in, his wrists forcibly fastened around the back in a rather uncomfortable fashion. The Doctor strides over to the door again, pulling out a key and his sonic screwdriver.

‘Earth. I had to choose somewhere to make an emergency stop, and it was the first place I thought of.’

The Master snorts. ‘Gallifrey never occurred to you?’

The Doctor’s head snaps up so fast on his neck that the Master wishes it had gone a few inches further so that his neck would’ve broken altogether. However the pain etched on the Doctor’s face is almost as good, something to revel in. ‘I… can’t.’

‘Why? Did they exile you again?’

‘No… I…’ There’s another thump, and a look of relief floods the Doctor’s features and he turns his head toward the source. ‘I’d better fix that,’ he comments, nodding to the broken door now hanging aimlessly from its hinges.

‘Oh yes, because that’s your greatest worry,’ mutters the Master, attempting to move just enough in order to keep his eyes on the Doctor. ‘Why not Gallifrey?’

‘Shut up, Master,’ the Doctor’s muffled voice replies, sonic screwdriver clenched between his teeth. ‘Not now.’

About two minutes and a considerable amount of swearing later and the door hangs grandly from screwdriver-repaired hinges.

‘Oh good, now that you’ve got the door wonderfully fixed, do you think you could focus on getting us some more light in here, or perhaps lighting up the console, even?’

The Doctor rolls his eyes. ‘I think I know what the problem is, and I only need one component. Unfortunately, I don’t have one here-’

‘Are you sure? There’s a whole seventeen rooms full of junk in this place.’

‘Twenty-one, actually.’ The Doctor pauses. ‘How on Earth do you know that? I locked you out of all the rooms like that.’

‘I guessed,’ covers the Master, although he knows the Doctor isn’t convinced. ‘Anyway, how do you propose you get this component?’

The Doctor sighs. ‘I have a friend on Earth that has a whole stockpile of things similar to it. And unfortunately that’s not just ‘me’, that’s ‘us’. I’m not leaving you here while the systems and defences are down, not if you can get into any room in this place, and certainly not with the door’s lock being held together with a melded piece of metal, a key and a certain amount of luck.’

The Master just raises his eyebrows. ‘You’re letting me out in dear old Earth? Your little playground filled with those stupid little apes?’

The Doctor clenches his teeth. ‘I don’t have much of a choice.’

~*~

As soon as they step out of the TARDIS, the Master’s wrists firmly clamp together from the magne-cuffs. Not _just_ the magne-cuffs though, but also the Earth-style standard-issue handcuffs, and a somewhat mangled version of a TARDIS key which the Doctor explains is a crudely made perception filter. (More tiny decoders fly to their places in his memory but he ignores them… they’re not doing much good until the full picture emerges.) The Doctor, as an offhand comment has also assured him that as soon as he starts doing anything out of line, the magne-cuffs are also able to issue a sharp body-immobilising electric shock.

Taking one look at his surroundings, the Master groans. ‘Let me guess. We’re in Cardiff. I thought your favourite place to wage war on alien species and antagonise the timelines of innocent humans – not that I’m complaining – was London.’

‘My friend’s base is in Cardiff. Now come on and stop whinging. You’re outside, aren’t you?’

‘I am,’ confirms the Master. ‘I’m also wearing two sets of handcuffs that could administer an electric shock up my reflex arc, muscles and spine at any minute. But thanks for asking, I appreciate the concern.’

The Doctor just rolls his eyes and starts walking across the square to a tall silver building. The Master, keen to avoid painful electric shocks (thank you very much) follows reluctantly, falling in step behind his fellow Time Lord as they reach a small door near the bay. Without knocking, the Doctor enters. The room looks somewhat similar to a tourist information store – not that the Master has ever been to one – and a man with bright blue eyes wearing a well fitting suit stands behind the counter.

‘Can I help you?’ He asks, his eyes scanning the Master’s supposedly invisible body.

The Doctor just waves a hand dismissively, trying to distract the man away from the Master. ‘Yeah, I’m looking for Captain Jack Harkness. I’m Doctor John Smith.’

‘Ianto Jones. Does he know you, Doctor Smith?’

‘Yeah, we’re old friends.’

‘I don’t mean to be rude, but have you got any ID?’

The Doctor sighs and pulls out a wallet containing two slips of psychic paper. ‘Doctor John Smith, see?’

The man, Ianto, nods, before turning away. ‘I’ll go get him for you. Wait here.’ He smiles, and disappears out a door.

The Master, aiming to be as irritating as possible now that he’s out of the TARDIS, starts tapping his foot on the floor in a crude replication of the drums in his head. Tappity-tap, tappity-tap, tappity-tap, tappity-tap, tappity- he stops once the door opens again, partially because the Doctor shoves him hard, and partially because with the appearance of the Doctor’s ‘friend’ a few more substantial gaps in the code of his memory are filled in.

‘Doctor!’

He rushes past Ianto, knocking him against the wall, and pulls the Doctor into a hug. Knowing that he’s met this man before somewhere in his lost memories, the Master makes a movement as sudden as he possibly can to attract this Captain Jack Harkness’ attention. Behind the Captain, Ianto blinks, craning forward to try and confirm that what he just saw was actually real. Jack catches the movement also, his eyes blinking rapidly as he tries to focus on the now still Master.

‘What’s he doing here?’ He growls, eyes flashing angrily as he turns to the Doctor.

‘Well that’s the thing. The TARDIS broke down. I mean seriously broke down. The entire security system is down, along with the power, backup power and everything else. So I had to bring him with me.’

Jack blinks hard, still trying to focus. ‘Could you take the perception filter off him then, Doctor? It’s giving me one hell of a headache.’

Sighing, the Doctor complies, lifting the string from around the Master’s neck. Behind the conversing men, Ianto Jones lifts his eyebrows so high that the Master thinks that with any luck, they might just get stuck there. Giving his biggest, and definitely-least-trustworthy smile, he waves his cuffed hands at the Welsh man that is now taking his place behind the desk again.

‘Anyway, Jack, I’m looking for a piece of metal I can melt down to fix an eragonistic accelerator.’

‘Don’t you have that on the TARDIS?’

‘Well I did, for a while, and then I used it. All of it. Um, except for about three sheets which mysteriously disappeared when Rose and I went to Mars for the sixth time – why do they always want to go to Mars? – and then I asked her where they’d gone, and she had no idea ‘cause she had no idea what they were in the first place ‘cause it wasn’t like I’d ever shown them to her before and-’

Jack coughs, his lips holding an ill-suppressed smile. ‘I think I might have something you could use. This way.’

Winking at Ianto, Jack stalks back out the door, his coat-jacket momentarily catching on the doorway. The Doctor begins to follow, but is stopped when Jack sticks his head back in the room. ‘We could put _him_ in one of the cells… they’ve got three levels of security around them. We’ve not had a single person escape yet, not even a Weevil.’ He raises his eyebrows and the Doctor pauses, considering.

‘Okay, but only if you’ve got security cameras and some sort of portable telly.’

Jack smiles, holding out his vortex manipulator. ‘Got just the thing.’

~*~

Ten minutes later and the Master is stuck in a disgusting cell trying not to get too wet from the dripping dungeon-style walls. The Doctor, however, is ratting through all kinds of alien tech, laughing with Jack as they chat about what has been happening since they last met.

Jack holds up a piece of thin metal tubing and examines it, his face drawing serious. ‘He woke up then?’

‘Mhmm.’

‘When?’

‘That won't work.’ The Doctor replies, peering through his glasses and nodding to the tubing. ‘About six weeks ago.’

‘He done anything to you?’

‘He’s been avoiding me. First time I’ve seen him in six weeks was about an hour ago. Less. Just before the system shut down.’

‘Huh,’ snorts Jack, raising his eyebrows at the Doctor.

‘I don’t think it had anything to do with him. He’s been locked out of all the rooms that could possibly have had any effect on the system.’

‘From what I’ve seen, that wouldn’t stop him.’

‘Hmm,’ murmurs the Doctor absentmindedly as he examines a long sheet of some kind of metal. ‘But it was partially the TARDIS too, and she’s not exactly pleased with him.’

‘I wonder why that might be.’ Jack points a finger at the sheet the Doctor’s looking at. ‘That’s the stuff that the Cybermen were made out of. We confiscated it after Canary Wharf.’

The Doctor looks up. ‘It didn’t go out with the rest of them?’

‘No… I don’t know why, actually, but there were a few things that didn’t disappear with the rest of them. One of my staff members – the handsome guy that you met at the desk – his girlfriend was half turned into a Cybermen. He tried to save her. It didn’t end well.’

‘Really?’ The Doctor blinks. ‘What happened?’

‘Doesn’t matter. Anyway, there’s more of that if you need it.’

‘Nah, I think this is all I need. Thanks Jack… really.’

Jack just splits into a giant grin and nods. ‘Any time. Just don’t bring him with you next time.’

The Doctor’s eyes widen. ‘Oh!’ Flipping the vortex manipulator upwards, he takes a look at the Master’s whereabouts, breathing a sigh of relief as he spots the Master’s glaring eyes fixed on the camera. He stops to watch for a minute just to make sure and has to force back a smile as his prisoner waves sarcastically at him, both wrists held together.

The relief doesn’t last long as a woman’s voice calls out from the central room of Torchwood’s hub. ‘Jack? We’ve got some alien readings on the computers. Can you come have a look? It’s nothing I’ve ever seen before.’

Both the Doctor and Jack’s eyebrows skyrocket and the Doctor drops the sheet of metal he’d been holding as they both run toward her voice.

‘What is it?’ Asks the Doctor, rushing toward the computer and pushing his glasses further up his nose.

‘Uh, hi.’ She says, blinking rapidly at the sudden shock.

‘Tosh, this is my friend… the Doct-.’ He stops as the Doctor nudges him in the ribs, giving him a look. ‘Doctor John Smith,’ he corrects. ‘John, this is Toshiko Sato.’

‘Nice to meet you, Toshiko. Now, what were you saying about the alien readings?’

‘Well,’ Tosh says, edging closer to the computer and reclaiming the keyboard and mouse. ‘There’s a large blue object standing stationary on the square outside the base. It’s right on top of the rift, Jack.’

‘Yeah, that’ll be my ship,’ dismisses the Doctor with a wave of his hand. ‘Are there any other readings?’

‘Well, I thought I saw one inside the base, but unless you’re an alien,’ she laughs, ‘then-’ She pauses, scanning the Doctor’s amused features as the room falls silent. ‘Ah.’

‘Yeah. And the other one would be my… friend.’ The word makes Jack’s lips curl slightly with distaste, but the Doctor ignores it. ‘That it?’

‘Wait… did you say ‘the other one’?’ Tosh’s eyebrows crease together. ‘There are only two alien readings on the scanner.’

The Doctor’s can feel his hearts stop, feel the tickle of the Master’s mind at the back of his own. He’s still here, but… He pulls out Jack’s vortex manipulator, pressing buttons until he gets a view of the cell. The Master’s gone, and the cell door is wide open.

The Master is gone.

~*~

Eyes flashing, the Doctor looks up at Jack. ‘I thought you said that no one had broken out of those cells before.’

‘No one _had_! Well… not anyone _else_ we’ve put in them.’

The Doctor waves his hand, turning back to Tosh. ‘Can you widen your scan? Check for alien life outside the base?’ 

She nods. ‘We set up the system so it’d be easily detectable, especially in the case of Weevils. Shouldn’t take a moment.’ Typing in rolls of code, Tosh hits the enter key, her eyes widening behind her glasses. ‘Oh god.’ She turns around, black hair slapping at her shoulders. ‘Jack? The Weevils are gone too. He must’ve taken them with him.’

~*~

It takes the Master exactly five minutes and thirty two seconds to figure out exactly how to get out of the cell. Honestly, he’s a genius, and none of these ignorant little human apes have any idea about proper security. He’s about to leave when he sees the little red light on the security camera in the corner flash on. It’s nice to see the Doctor’s checking up on him. He waves in an attempt to assure the Doctor of his presence but as soon as it’s gone, he swings open the door and steps into the corridor.

It would’ve taken him less than five minutes to get out had he not been wearing the double handcuffs, but physical restraints aren’t something that’s ever really stopped him in the past, and they never will be.

The corridor is bare, and the entire cellblock is silent. Good, no one around to raise an alarm except three human sized creatures nearby. They’re nothing he’s ever seen before, but they’re definitely alien… or some kind of human mutation. As soon as he steps up to the glass, the alien mimics him, placing its hand up. 

On each hand are five fingers, on which are placed elongated nails, sharpened to points like claws. The animal snarls, and pointed teeth are bared.

Oh, excellent. This _will_ be fun.

It takes an even shorter period of time to open every cell door in the block, overriding the primitive security blocks on the computers and shutting down electric power to this section. As soon as the aliens are out, he reboots the system and turns on his heel. 

They call this high-tech security? What did the sign in the main hall say? Torchwood? (Yet another piece of code falls into place, but again, he ignores it.) Psh, this is nothing. They even have a little escape route out of the cellblock. How handy. 

Well, it’s not exactly an escape route, more of a transdimensional gap on the cracks of a rift, but it’s easily enough employed and manipulated. One step this way, and he’s gone, the aliens following behind.

Luckily, although technically luck has nothing to do with it, the rift spits them out on the edge of Cardiff bay, only a short step from the Doctor’s TARDIS. Unfortunately the rickety old piece of junk is unusable at this particular moment, despite its shields being wonderfully shut down, making it beautifully open to use. Unfortunately the rift didn’t put enough space between them and the base, and handsome Jack and saint-Doctor emerge from the tall building after only minutes.

By which time, the other aliens are gone, and the delicious sounds of screams are already beginning to call from the populace nearby. 

So, with a broad smile on his face, he settles himself on the doorstep of the blue box and begins to fiddle with his nails.

By the time the Doctor reaches the box, he’s started to manicure the nails, picking at invisible specks of dust and looking completely uninterested in the screams that are sounding from nearby. In reality, they’re making his hearts pump emphatically with euphoria, but that’s not something the Doctor needs to know. Maybe later.

The Doctor’s eyes are dark, pained from the sounds he can hear rising in the air. 

‘It’s wonderful, isn’t it? A beautiful sound from such an _ugly_ race.’

‘Inside. Now.’

The Master pouts. ‘Oh, really? Are you going to fix your little machine while those precious little pets of lovely Jack go running around dear little Earth, decimating Cardiff?’ He pauses. ‘Although, I don’t think the rest of the world would really complain all that much. It _is_ Wales, after all.’

‘Now.’

He shrugs, giving the Doctor a little smile, and steps into the console room. The Doctor, pure anger in his face, grabs him by his joined wrists and marches him, almost stumbling, over to the side of the console. The Master grins as the Doctor undoes the silver ring of the metal handcuffs on his left wrist before looping it through the grating on the floor and reattaching it. 

‘You always did like it kinky.’

The Doctor doesn’t flinch, doesn’t look away, just continues his work, pulling out another set of handcuffs and shackling the Master in a similar fashion to the grating. 

‘You are going to stay here, while I help Jack take control of the monstrosities that _you_ set on Cardiff.’

‘Oh come now, Doctor. I was just giving them a little freedom. Aren’t you always harping on about freeing poor innocents imprisoned by circumstance?’ He tugs at his bonds pointedly, raising an eyebrow.

‘You’re not innocent.’

‘Neither are you.’

The Doctor doesn’t rebut, just turns away and strides over to the door, turning around to send a softened glare at the Master. ‘I should have known better than to trust you.’

‘Yes. You should have.’

Once the door is closed behind him, the Doctor locks it with the best of his ability and sighs. He’d never thought it would be easy, and it’s not, but from the looks of things, this is just the beginning.

Inside, the Master grins. This little mission was never about escape, world domination or theft. It was just a little message to the Doctor: I will _not_ be controlled. 

Message sent … message received.


	3. Chapter Two: Morning Star

Three hours later, the Weevils are contained and the Doctor says his goodbyes to Jack, heading back to the TARDIS where the Master is lying back on the grating, staring at the ceiling. His body is twisted somewhat in his attempts to make himself comfortable, and his jacket is splayed behind him.

‘How many?’ He asks by way of greeting.

‘What?’

‘How many did they kill?’

The Doctor just closes his eyes, breathing a deep sigh and walks over to the console. 

‘Did they cry when you saved them? The great hero rushing in to save the day? Did they thank you, Doctor, when you held them in your arms, rocking back and forth as they sobbed? Tell me, Doctor, did they bleed out as they died, slashed across the chest by those long gouging claws?’

He’s got him now, and the Doctor stands over him, brown eyes deep with sorrow and despair. ‘Are your hearts shattered in four for these little apes that die every second? It’s nature’s course, you know. Everything dies.’

‘It’s not your right to play God.’

‘Of course it is, you silly boy. That is what we are. Time Lords, playing Gods with these little people. They’re so small, tiny little playthings that die so easily after only a short period of time. Millions of people one _tenth_ of your age at the ends of their lives dying every day.’

The Doctor’s jaw clenches, and he looks as if he’s ready to strike him. ‘Go on, kick me. You know you’ve always wanted to. Here, defenceless. Hurt me.’

But he just turns away, and the Master scowls. ‘Coward. Aww, are you better than that? The great Doctor, high and almighty, better than all of us lowly beasts.’

The Doctor just sighs, inserts the material he needs to into the TARDIS and dematerialises the machine.

~*~

As soon as he recalibrates the entire system so that the time machine is fully functional again, (Well, mostly. ‘She’s never been _fully_ functional,’ remarks the Master from the floor, still tethered where the Doctor left him for fear that he’d destabilise the whole thing during its vulnerability if he let him up.

‘Oi! I like her like that! It’s… retro.’ Counters the Doctor defensively, crossing his arms. The Master just ‘hmm’s’ and shoots him the best knowing look he can with his arms slowly losing circulation behind his back.) the Doctor fixes every defence he can find. Once the controls are set to isomorphic and every room except those the Master would do no harm in is locked, the Doctor lets him free.

Shaking his arms and shooting him a defiant glare, the Master turns on his heel and promptly disappears again. But that’s fine with the Doctor. He needs some space. 

Sometime during the tenth week of the Master’s captivity, the Doctor starts missing noises again. It’s so quiet, one of the longest times he’s gone for so long without a loud companion to buzz inanely nearby, joking and laughing as he fiddles around with the console. He’s not landed anywhere in months, instead performing all the maintenance he can, and overhauling many of the old parts of the TARDIS that weren’t upgraded when he landed on Gallifrey before the Time War.

Gallifrey.

He’d have to tell the Master eventually of course, but not now. Everything is still hurting right now, and he needs his mind and body to quiet before he can bring that up again. So he locks those particular memories in a box marked ‘DANGER, DO NOT OPEN’ in his mind, and goes back to the repairs.

By the end of the tenth week of the Master’s imprisonment, he lands the TARDIS. The Master is nowhere to be seen, and he just needs to be out somewhere. In fresh air, on a planet he’s never explored before.

He’s not going to go very far, just stand there looking out. Follow the rites of the Time Lords and just observe for once. 

So he programs coordinates and materialises, grabs his coat and rushes out the door.

~*~

On Cizal IV, it is raining.

The rain here trickles like blood, red drips falling from a broken black sky onto a world so purple that it makes a gay pride parade look like nothing.

And the rain falls.

Outside, the Doctor looks up, and rain hits his forehead. Once. Twice. Three times. Then it stops. Again. Once. Twice. Three times. Pause. Over and over again.

This planet is safe. It is repetitive, with days whizzing by with the same routine, never anything out of the ordinary here to hurt. It’s perfect. Just the place he needs to get away from the Master.

He closes his eyes and listens, straining his ears to absorb every wave of sound. In one corner of the world, a girl is singing, back against a wall, staring across her room at a cupboard where soft toys sit, replicas of Earth animals. An owl. A tiger. This place is a picture of beauty.

And yet it is so ugly. The sky is cracked, the same way it looked when the Toclaphane descended on the Earth like hungry crows looking for death. The sky is perpetually black, despite it being daytime, and a red sun so like the Earth’s hangs overhead, barely seeping through the black. Lightning flashes occasionally.

And still the rain falls.

The Doctor is sick of death, and black, and red. He’s sick of age, and weariness, sadness and loss.

His suit is soaked with blood now, blood from the heavens that rains down. Blood from the thousands he’s killed himself. Those that died because of him. Blood of Gallifrey. The blood of his own people, thick with artron energy.

‘Hello sir,’ says a voice behind him. He jumps, and his throat catches in his throat. ‘Can I help you?’

She’s blonde and oh-so-beautiful. Brown eyes thick with curiosity look up at him, and an umbrella shields her head, stained blood red from the heaven’s downpour.

‘No,’ he murmurs, quiet. _I won’t interfere this time. I won’t._ ‘Thank you.’

‘Come inside, sir,’ she smiles. ‘I insist. You’ll catch your death of cold out here.’

And he lets himself be led. Why not? The Master hasn’t made an appearance in weeks. It’s highly unlikely he’ll even notice he’s gone.

Inside a café, she tugs on an apron, rustles behind a counter and produces a liquid that looks and smells like coffee mixed with something.

‘It’s Earth coffee, Mr…’ She waits, searching for a name.

‘I’m the Doctor.’ There’s a second while she processes the information, and he takes the chance to take a sip of the drink.

‘Are you now? My name’s Rose.’

The words feel like a punch in the gut but he ignores it. There are lots of people named Rose. He can’t think about that now. So he files that away too, back into its little box with the danger sign warning his subconscious firmly away.

The coffee disappears in a flash, and seconds trickle away with the rainfall. Slowly the Doctor relaxes more and more, and falls asleep at the table.

When he wakes, he’s still at the table, head angled sidewards so he can see outside. The sun is gone now, a moon shining like the blood-moon of an Earth eclipse. His head feels thick, like cotton wool from his sleep, but he forces it to behave, allowing him to sit up. 

Rose is still behind him, sitting on a red stool at the bar, playing with her fingernails. She looks up as he rises.

‘Are you alright sir? I tried to wake you, but you were dead to the world.’ She grins. ‘We’ve shut, but I thought I might as well let you be until you woke up.’

The Doctor groans. ‘Thank you.’

‘It’s not a problem.’ She stands up and takes some of his weight as he stands. ‘Come on, best get you home. You look like death warmed up.’

‘I’ve not slept in weeks.’

‘That’d about do it. D’you want me to come with you?’

He contemplates it. He needs more company, someone to stay with him that doesn’t disappear for weeks on end, and doesn’t shoot death threats at him any time he does encounter them. But then he remembers Martha, and he shakes his head. ‘Nah, I’ll be alright. Thanks.’

The Doctor beams at her, shaking her hand, and turns out into the darkened street.

~*~

The Master, on the other hand, takes this rare occasion in his stride and decides to overhaul the TARDIS himself. Manually of course, after the stupid machine refuses him any sort of access. Isomorphic controls. Bastard. But not to worry, the machine is organic material, after all. He just needs to get to the heart.

He’s halfway through destabilising the fourth dimensional distance router when the Doctor unhelpfully rushes in. 

Caught red handed, the Master turns around, leaning on the console with a crocodile smile on his face, and flicks a random switch.

‘Hello.’

The Doctor just groans, pushes him away and down the corridors to his frightfully pink room and locks the door, pinning in the lock on the keypad. He can’t deal with this now, and he has no idea what the Master has done to the security.

The Master just grins and settles on the bed. Oh well, another day. But the man needn’t think he has the right to go off on his fanciful excursions while he has a prisoner. Who is he to enjoy himself while the Master is stuck here as a prisoner? 

It’s not just that, though. He’s simply _bored_ more than anything else, and he’s not even close to recovering those all-important memories that just won’t _come_.

There are a few _other_ things he’d like to make come. But all in good time.

Settling against the pink pillows (he tried to dye them black in the wash but the only thing that happened was that they dyed one of his suits dark pink on the second wash) he closes his eyes and delves back into his memory. Back into the thick grey fog that doesn’t ever seem to clear.

~*~

After a while, the Master starts visiting the console room more often. Frankly, he’s sick of his horrendous pink cell, and the only rooms he’s let in these days are all of the libraries, two of the gardens, the kitchen, the tearoom, his cell, ensuite… and the console room.

Besides, torturing the Doctor is far more entertaining than irritating the man-eating plant in the second garden, and much less lethal. He’s actually starting to enjoy this body, for all its setbacks. There aren’t many, he concedes. The only one he can think of off the top of his head is the obvious fact that it’s currently locked in the Doctor’s TARDIS. Oh, and the lack of memories. That too.

The first day he re-enters the console room, he sits down on one of the benches (away from where he was previously fastened… he’s had enough of that particular view, thank you very much) and begins to silently smoothen his suit jacket down, picking at the fabric. The Doctor, _completely_ unaware of his presence, embarrassingly begins to sing. For numerous reasons, the first of which being that he’s _completely_ tuneless, the Master coughs, and the singing abruptly stops, coupled with an incredibly amusing scandalised look from the Doctor as he spins around so fast that he falls over.

The Master just grins.

After that, a type of routine sets in. They begin to live by the biological clocks of their bodies, keeping a thirty-eight hour day by a fifteen hour night and setting the TARDIS lights to suit now that there are no humans to set an Earth clock to.

They rise together in the morning, meet in the kitchen for breakfast as the Master burns the Doctor’s toast, conveniently forgets to put the tea leaves in the teapot and somehow manages to set fire to the Doctor’s bacon. (His own was perfectly done of course, without a single blemish.) He _wont_ let the Doctor make the food because his cooking is simply shocking. No _wonder_ he kept all those human pets around. He would’ve starved otherwise. His tea-making skills also leave a lot to be desired. 

Then the Doctor would head off to the console room, followed shortly by the Master who would take up his place on his bench and exist while the Doctor fiddled with the console.

Yet more weeks pass, and a day doesn’t go by without the Master sitting there. 

At first the Master reads. There’s not much else _to_ do in the console room except watch the Doctor fiddle with the wrong switches and screw the whole thing up again before attempting to fix it and listen to his annoyingly persistent nattering. Neither prospect seems all that enticing, so he grits his teeth, focuses on the words and attempts to drown the Doctor out.

In the tenth Earth week of the Master’s captivity (it’s amazing how the Doctor still measures his weeks by Earth time despite the whole ship converting to that of Gallifrey) the Doctor gets a phone call.

As soon as he picks up, the Master’s eyes slide off his copy of Harry Potter: The Lost Sequel and follow the Doctor. The Doctor’s face pales, and he pays even closer attention.

‘Marth-. Martha- no. No I- Seriously I-. Oh, I see. Give me the exact date and time and I’ll see how I go. No- ye- I was going to stop off on Earth anyway. We need more groceries.’ There’s another pause, but the Doctor doesn’t even attempt to speak until silence reigns on Martha’s end. ‘Yeah, he woke up. About ten weeks ago. No, no, it’s fine. Ah, you’ve been talking to Jack. Right. Oh. No, no, I’ll be there in a minute. Right.’ He hangs up.

The Master, a smirk on his face, slips his eyes back to the book and opens his mouth, attempting to assume a façade of disinterest.

‘Who was that, your second mother?’

The Doctor just rolls his eyes. ‘It’s one of my old companions. Well, most recent one, actually.’

‘Martha.’

‘Yes.’ The Doctor watches him carefully, and the Master feels like he should be doing something but only one little piece of information clicks into place somewhere deep in his subconscious, well away from his current consciousness. ‘Anyway, I have to drop in at Earth and give her a hand.’ As the Master goes to stand up, he shakes his head. ‘ _You’re_ staying here. We all know what happened last time you went out on Earth.’

‘So what, you’re going to chain me to the floor again? Lock me in my prison? Keep me imprisoned in your stupid _box_ while I slowly go insane?’ As if to illustrate his point, he taps the faux leather seat with his fingers. Tappity-tap.

The Doctor sighs. ‘What choice do I have? If I take you with me, you’ll wreak havoc across London. If I leave you here unattended, who _knows_ what you’ll do to the TARDIS.’ He crosses his arms and leans against the console, looking sternly at the Master with the air of a father scolding a child. ‘You’ve given me no other options.’

‘You have plenty of options,’ the Master spits angrily. ‘Let me go.’

‘No.’

The Master just shrugs. ‘If I’m your _prisoner_ , I’m your responsibility. I have _rights_. Even if I had been imprisoned on Gallifrey I would have been given at least _some_ time outside. Either that or I’d’ve been locked in stasis – doesn’t sound that bad, really, in comparison.’ He pauses. 'Come to think of it, why _aren’t_ I on Gallifrey?’

The Doctor just swallows and turns away, whilst the Master cocks an eyebrow.

‘The garden _is_ outside. Essentially.’

The Master _knows_ he’s evading the topic, but now is not the time to push that particular button. He’s racking up a panel now, and all he needs is the perfect time to launch. So he just leans back and sighs theatrically.

The Doctor drops his eyes imperceptibly as the Master glares at him. ‘I’m going to lock you in your room.’

The Master just rolls his eyes. ‘Like a little child being punished?’ His top lip curls up in disgust but says no more as he exits the room, head held high. The Doctor just sighs and drops his hands, setting course for Earth.

And that’s how it goes for a while. The Doctor goes off to save whatever major drama is going on and the Master ends up shut in his little prison. They settle back into a newer, fresher routine. At least, for the Doctor, that is.

Every morning they rise. Every morning they eat. The Doctor runs off, the Master sits in wait like the good little _hausfrau_ , and every afternoon the Doctor comes back, bearing some kind of token for the Master. These gifts remind him somewhat of an animal being rewarded for performing his little tricks. But he’s _not_ one of Skinner’s little experimental birds, sitting in their little box and performing tricks for reward, and he’s _certainly_ not one of Pavlov’s dogs, operationally conditioned to respond to the Doctor’s absence.

It’s his free choice to perform in this way, and he has his reasoning. The Doctor may believe whatever he wishes, although the Master hardly thinks he’s that idiotic. Far from it. To label the Doctor’s genius as imbecilic would be to lessen his own (albeit only slightly). The Master has always been the more brilliant, but the Doctor also has always been second to this intellect.

No, the Doctor has his motive also, and for whatever cause, it appears that the only reasoning he has is that he _wants_ to believe that he is the puppet master. That he has his younger friend again. That _Koschei_ is back. The Master’s jaw tightens at the thought of the word, but if that’s what the Doctor wishes then who is he to counter it? 

The routine that has begun to build strengthens and eventually the Doctor lets him out when he goes away, to no ill result. By the end of the twelfth week of the Master’s captivity, somewhere near the 91st day, they’re even capable of friendly conversation in the console room, the Master sitting grinning as he skims through a book or newspaper and the Doctor nattering on at the console, bright and happy at finally finding equilibrium. 

At finding his friend.

And every night, the Master settles into his bed, listening as the Doctor absentmindedly punches keys on the door’s lock before straining to hear as the Doctor walks away. Every night the Master does the same thing. 

He opens the book and closes his eyes to find the trigger.

_Here I find you, Morning Star._


	4. Chapter Three: Japan and the Importance of Time

_“There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.”  
\- Josh Billings_

The Master is a strong believer in time. Of course, being what he is, time also sustains him. Logic is stable, and stability is also something he’s a strong sponsor of. Logically, for the Master to be a lord of time – for any Time Lord to be a lord of time – time must exist. For without time, they are but lords, and without the time to lord over, their species is null and void. QED. Of course, that wouldn’t stop time from existing, nor does this mean that the species would not exist were time not present… it’s only, really, that they would be mere beings, Gallifreyans, the product only of their planet. Demoted.

So, the Master respects time to hold his authority, and time itself respects him back. Of course for this to be true, their relationship must be flexible, because time is, as the Doctor so often states, is a ‘a big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey-wimey… stuff.’ More to the point, it is non-linear, non-subjective. Time does not depend on a life-form existing, and it does not depend on your standpoint. You may die, however time progresses, and your body progresses also with time. You become eternally a part of time, without being consciously aware of it.

With the reverence that he holds for this entity, the Master respects it with a customary ritual that is common to the planet that he stands on. Which is, in this case, Earth.

Which is lucky for him also, really. Humans are such savages, it is incredibly easy to justify it. Not that he needs to justify it to himself, but the Doctor’s large, sad eyes stare up at him and he just can’t help but explain it to him also. ‘Knowledge is,’ _after all,_ ‘literally the gift of the gods, for through it you can solve every human problem.’ _Isn’t that right, Doctor? The immortalised words of Robert Collier put to good use at last._

_To celebrate the first quarter of a year in his mastery over the Doctor’s little pet civilisation, the Master performs a sacrifice._

_Japan._

_On the 91st day, the islands of Japan burn, with every single person on board the Valiant present and correct on the bridge, staring as the celebratory fireworks light the air. The Master claps excitedly, the Jones family stand in silence with one thought in their minds_ ‘oh god, Martha, don’t be in Japan. Please be safe. Please be safe.’ _Handsome Jack, in all his filthy glory stands aside, far from the other viewers and within a safe distance of armed guards ready to tranquillise him with bullets, eternal sleep that never remains so._

_The Doctor stands, in his youthful glory now, rejuvenated for the great occasion by a window, tears pouring down his face._

_And the Master laughs, for time is appeased, and the drums within him quieten, just a little, for today._

_When the fires are no longer visible from their vantage point on the bridge, the Master sends down Toclaphane as surveillance only, moving video cameras to capture every moment possible. The captives sink to their knees, huddled together as the smoke rises from the Earth._

_Now discarding his pleasure, and saving the remaining footage for a rainy day, the Master performs a second ceremony. Another celebration for his brilliant progression._

_And so the Doctor is sent for, bound and still youthful. It is in this singular bedroom that he sits, perched on the edge of the bed with his hands carefully folded in his lap, head focused downwards so that his gaze rests on his feet._

_Such a submissive pose, the Master almost wants to clap with glee at the sight. But he composes himself, allowing himself only a small smile, and enters the room. With the Doctor on his front, this fine evening, the Master rewards himself with euphoria with every single thrust. And the Doctor lies submissive, a word not spoken between the two._

_This is not about speech, not words in their fine, shining value. This is about actions, and isn’t one action worth a hundred words? Perhaps he’s mixing metaphors. At any rate, this is about the action of the Master himself, and the inaction of the Doctor._

_This is about physical conquest. And conquer he does._

~*~

Irony falls, and while the Master is unaware of such irony, it falls all the same. Karma is, as always, a bitch, and metaphors form without any knowledge.

The Master lies on the Doctor’s TARDIS, face buried in the pillows, his wrists bringing themselves together and attaching only slightly from the mostly dormant – for now – miniscule magnetic force in the handcuffs under his skin. Legs spread apart, irony falls.

The Doctor, at eleven pm (by the Earth clock he keeps on the TARDIS in Rose’s old room) on the 91st day of the Master’s captivity, the Doctor is the audience that observes this irony, and lets one tear fall before turning away, locking the door and sealing it with the keypad.

_‘That man made us stand on deck and watch the islands of Japan burning. Millions of people.’_

And he had. The Doctor had reversed it, but, as Martha’s mother had pointed out, the people on board had stayed the same. His body, his memory… it stayed the same.

While the Master’s had failed.

Time had fractured. Time, space, physicality and mentality broke at one split second, and…

But never mind that. It’s not important now.

The Doctor turns and walks away, back to his bedroom to stare at the ceiling for hours, trying to not remember.

~*~

It’s not as if the 91 days pass the Master’s attention. It just lacks the significance that it holds for the Doctor. The Master has been with him one quarter of the days that he held the Doctor. The Doctor doesn’t pass comment, but the Master does. The Doctor just shrugs and ignores it.

‘I had a dream last night.’ He comments idly at breakfast the day after.

The Doctor freezes momentarily before going back to his cup of tea, stirring the liquid while his body remains tense and waiting. ‘Mm?’

‘Mmm. The islands of Japan on Earth. Burning. Millions of people dying in fire. The whole country engulfed with flames.’ He licks his lips. ‘All because of me. My gift to you. Ninety-one days of sacrifice.’

The Doctor just swallows and focuses on the table.

‘Where are they, Doctor? What have you done to my head to block them out?’

‘What?’

‘The Time Lords. Come now Doctor, did you honestly think I’d casually ignored the fact that they weren’t there? Really.’ He looks at him reproachfully.

‘Why wait until now?’

The Master waves a hand carelessly. ‘Wasn’t the thing top of my list to ask, really. I’ve been more focused on retrieving my memories and getting out of this place.’ The Doctor just raises an eyebrow. ‘What? As if my want to escape was that much of a secret.’

Silence falls, but he’s not letting him get away from it this time. ‘Where. Are. They?’

‘They’re… Gone.’

‘What do you mean, ‘Gone’?’

‘I don’t know,’ lies the Doctor. ‘They’re just not there anymore. It’s just you in my mind and I in yours.’

‘Tch. Liar. If that were the truth, you would’ve gone back to Gallifrey. You would have checked.’

‘I went back. I went back to the solar system of our home. It isn’t there, Master. They’ve either shielded it and shut us out or…’ he shrugs again. Lying shouldn’t be this easy.

The Master doesn’t look quite convinced. ‘Aren’t you going to do something about it then?’

Exasperated, the Doctor looks at him. ‘What do you propose? It’s not there as far as I can see. Just drop it, Master.’ Without another word, he gets up, dumps the almost full cup of tea in the sink and walks out of the room.

The Master just smiles.

~*~

Weeks later, the Master wanders into the console room, plants himself on what has now been marked as _his_ seat, and opens his mouth. The Doctor’s playing with the console as usual - he thought he’d never say this, but it’s been more than a hundred days and he doesn’t quite believe that there can be _that_ many problems with the console – and he doesn’t even look up as he enters. Very disappointing.

‘I remember.’

This _does_ make the Doctor look up. ‘What?’

‘I remember. Chunks here and there. Not all of it, no, not anywhere _near_ all of it. But it’s very close, Doctor. They’ve been coming to me in my dreams. Pictures here and there, like I’m watching a movie. They’re not the _same_ , not memories that I have from that time, more like second-hand memories. But they’re there all the same. I remember the metal spheres, soaring through the skies, scouring the Earth. They were mine, weren’t they? My design.’

‘Yes,’ says the Doctor stiffly. ‘Do you remember what they were?’

‘No. But perhaps you’d like to enlighten me.’

‘Perhaps some things are best left unremembered.’

The Master harrumphs, but he knows that the Doctor isn’t going to say much more than that so he drops it and moves on.

‘I remember the power. Ohh, so much power. In control of _everything_ on that bleak little world. How long was it, Doctor? How long before I made whatever mistake it was that got me here?’

‘Your mistake was made at the beginning, Master. It’s always the same mistake.’

‘No. That’s where you’re wrong. It’s your mistake to think that the world is best left the way you see fit. You’re just like _them_. Never allowing change, unless it is your own change, you sanctimonious hypocrite. Tell me, Doctor. If you had let me take control of some little planet, ooh, hundreds of years ago, would less people have died? That is blood on _your_ hands. Not mine.’

This makes the Doctor snap and he whirls around. Excellent.

His jaw is tight, restricting his words as he chokes them out. ‘If you had left things be, that blood would never have been spilt. If you had stopped killing, there would be less hurt. Martha Jones would be left unscarred. Her family wouldn’t have nightmares every night about silver spheres bombarding their houses. Jack would be able to sleep at night.’

The Master raises his eyebrows. This isn’t what he wanted. No, it’s much, much, _much_ better. ‘Jack? Martha? The Jones family? Now tell me Doctor. Did I lay one finger on their heads? Because I simply don’t remember those people at all. One, yes, from recent times. Handsome Jack. Speaking of which, what, exactly, is wrong with him? The shudders I felt when he came by. Couldn’t you _feel_ it, Doctor? The wrongness of it all.’ He pauses. ‘But Jones? Hmm, no, don’t remember them. Unless you’d like to refresh my memory, Doctor. To tell the story in its painstaking beauty. My _masterpiece_.’

The Doctor looks at him, revolted, and turns away. 

‘Some things are best left unremembered.’ He repeats.

The Master laughs. He’d not expected anything more than that. ‘Is that so?’

~*~

Seeing is believing. The phrase has been tossed around so much that no one simply remembers who first spoke those words. In an atheist’s point of view on religion, for something to be real, it must present itself in a visible form. Atheists trust science. They trust the molecular structure that builds up the body. They trust things that they can touch and see. That they can feel. They do not trust in faith.

Ironically, it seems that the gap in the Master’s existence relies solely on just that. Faith.

Faith that the Doctor is telling the truth, however contrary the evidence might seem. Faith that his mind itself is telling the truth instead of spinning lies for him to, in turn, spit out to the Doctor, for him to affirm. 

If they are lies, they are such _pretty_ lies. And when his memories do return – a fact that _will_ occur, no matter how long it takes – he will see who has been lying. And if these stories he’s been spinning himself about Earth appear false, then he’ll act it out instead. Feel the power. Plan and scheme. And he’ll remember what stopped him in this story and remove it from the equation altogether.

If they are truth, then it matters not. He’ll figure something else out. Some other way to hurt the Doctor, to make _him_ see how painful this imprisonment really is.

He’s not complained too bitterly. It’s pointless, really, and all it results in is that sanctimonious sap turning those big puppy dog eyes on him in pity. _Pity_. What good is pity except as a pacifistic weapon?

So he sits back and waits until his memories come flooding back.

Sometimes the universe feels like it did when he was that human. Patchy, where he’s so resolved in his beliefs that these flickers of memory feel like only dreams. Like that person is another man. Of course he still has the same personality, thank Rassilon, but it’s like certain events, important to _forming_ his personality are missing.

One day, numbers come to him, almost like a child in sing-song. Ninety-one days in a quarter, three-hundred and sixty-five days in a year. He grits his teeth in annoyance. His mind is straining out, but he can’t stretch across the gap between what he’s experiencing and the truth.

And it’s already been one hundred and eighty days.

~*~

On the worst nights, the Doctor hears the Master’s anger and frustration echoing through the walls of the TARDIS. Even if his bedroom wasn’t next to the Master’s he’s sure he would still be able to hear it. The Master smashes objects and kicks walls. But the worst part of it is the screaming. The blame. The sheer frustration of his imprisonment.

The Doctor understands. Of _course_ he understands. He’s been in a similar situation where the reverse occurred and he was in the Master’s possession.

But the Master had been crueller.

_Had he, though?_ Whispers his subconscious, and he just sighs, sinking back as the rage continues.

After these nights, the Master always speaks of what he’s remembered, and the Doctor begins to wish that he had made more of an attempt to restore the memories just for the sheer selfish reason that he doesn’t want to hear them come from the Master’s lips. He doesn’t want to remember.

And every time, the Master begins with the same two words. ‘I remember.’

These mornings, it hurts the most.

To be truthful, he realises how selfish he has been the past few months. He’s ignored the Master’s pain and sheer frustration because he _prefers_ it that way. He wants it to be like it was when they were kids, running through the slopes of Gallifrey.

_‘I lied to you. Because I liked it.’_

He dreads the day when the Master remembers what happened to Gallifrey. He’s almost enjoyed being able to live his own lie, that somehow the Time Lords had exiled the Master and he completely by shielding the planet and forming the façade that it’d been destroyed. But he knows it isn’t true. He saw it burn before his very eyes.

He’d made it burn.

This particular night, as soon as the banging noises stop resounding through the TARDIS, the Doctor rolls over on his side and stares at the cupboard behind him.

One day he was going to have a night where relationships, lost planets and evil dictators _weren’t_ always on his mind. It just wasn’t going to be tonight.

~*~

As soon as he’d relaxed ever so slightly, the Master had gritted his teeth and settled back onto the bed. He was never going to get his memories back through physical means (although that wasn’t to say he was going to _stop_. Mindless destruction appeased the drums, and for the moment that was what he needed) but mental. Sighing, he flipped open the book, pinpointed a particular section and closed his eyes.

~*~

_Martha Jones is not classically beautiful, nor is she graceful or dazzling. But she is rather pretty, although a step down of sorts for the Doctor. Still, he watches as she approaches, and considers her. The look on her family’s collective faces is definitely delicious. Completely fearful, and decadently sorrowful. A perfect reaction for such a perfect death._

_‘At zero, to mark this day, the child, Martha Jones, will die.’ He smiles. Her death would mark his new mastery over the planet._

_And it was going to be_ excellent. __

_‘My first blood. Any last words?’ He waits. ‘No?’ His attentions draw to the Doctor, shrivelled and mangled, a nine hundred year old man standing suspended in one body. Pitiful. The great and wonderful saviour, now hanging in a cage like a mangled canary. ‘Such a disappointment, this one. Days of old, Doctor, you had companions that could absorb the Time Vortex. This one’s useless.’_

_He unsheathes the laser screwdriver and it slices through the air with a delicious metallic noise. ‘Bow your head.’_

_She does so. So obedient, these little companions of the Doctor’s. Not as obedient as lovely Lucy, but no one_ can _rival his handiwork anyway._

_‘And so it falls to me as Master of all to establish from this day a_ new _order of Time Lords. From this day forward-‘ And she begins to laugh. To mock._ Him! _To mock_ him! _How_ dare _she mock him?_

_‘What? What’s so funny?’_

_As he drops his weaponed arm, she raises her head, a smile on her face. ‘A gun?’_

_‘What about it?’_

_‘A gun, in four parts?’_

_‘Yes. And I destroyed it.’_

_‘A gun in four parts scattered across the Earth. I mean_ come on. _Did you_ really _believe that?’_

_He pauses, annoyance rising. ‘What do you mean?’_

_‘As if I would ask her to kill.’ The Master’s muscles tense. This has always been his greatest fear and the Doctor_ knows _it. He’s finally using it against him. But he doesn’t let it betray him. This is child’s play, nothing to be disturbed by the Doctor’s petty attempts to subdue him._

Without warning, the Master pulls a blank. The memory stops, jars, skips and reboots. Reaching. Grasping. Grabbing. __

_The Doctor, warm around him. So warm. So patronising. So idiotically, sanctimoniously, Messianic. Those. Three. Words. ‘I forgive you.’_

_So_ irritatingly _patronising. He grits his teeth and tugs the Doctor’s hand away. ‘My children!’_

Blank. Grey matter. So painfully jarring in his mind. Like he’s searching for an answer to an exam he hasn’t studied for in years. And his memories skip again. And again. Onwards, onwards, further and further through time, events blurring past to join the grey. 

He never does get a broad spectrum of the grey. Just blanks blurred with images that never seem to focus.

He latches on, and grabs. And feels pain.

_As soon as the bullet hits him, the Master gasps and staggers back, shock and fear kicking in initially before the blinding trickle of pain sears through him, upwards through his stomach, and chest. His ribs. His hearts. And downwards. Through his crotch and legs, achingly burning with a need to be healed from a phantom pain._

_He falls backwards, and the Doctor, the Messianic twat that he is, catches him in his arms. Sweet, really. He should feel touched._

He remembers the Doctor’s tears falling on him, and he remembers dying. 

And then the grey shutters fall completely, and he sees one word imprinted in white, like a tattoo on the back of his mind. Then he takes a gasp of air and his eyes open wide.

_Seraphim._


	5. Chapter Four: Of Maidens, Seraphs and Demons

When an entire two and-a-bit years of memories come flooding back, the Master expect something impressive. Just a little. Like a crack of lightning or a rumble of thunder. Some black smoke. Rassilon, _white_ smoke. Maybe even some white light, like when that fool Yana had opened the fob watch and his essence had flowed out. But no, none of that. In fact, nothing happened _at all_ , externally.

Nothing _internally_ either, other than the memories popping back. No rush of euphoria (although he could use it these days), no real realisation. Just the knowledge that they’re _there_. 

To use an analogy, take Earth and the stupid human inhabitants of it. When they look at the scenery, say when they’re travelling down a road. They observe the trees, the streets, the wonderful bluebirds tweeting in the sky-

He’s beginning to sound like the Doctor.

In any case, they simply observe. The memories float in their short-term memory to be filtered and then anything important flits to the long-term memory. That is, if you’re human. Time Lords are _much_ more complicated.

The point is that it’s just _there_. They make no conscious effort of remembering, and it’s only until much later when they _draw_ on that memory, that they realise that they’d remembered in the first place.

Which leads us to now, one word, and the Master’s simple monosyllabic sound. ‘Oh.’

~*~

When he’d been on the Valiant, the Doctor had quietly marked the half-year of captivity to himself. One-hundred and eighty-two days. He hadn’t mentioned it to the Master, nor to any of the others. It was an incredibly important figure for hacking into the Archangel network because the Master had always depended on time. He loved to use countdowns, possibly because of the pure essence of time that they depicted, and possibly, although the Doctor can’t say that he knows this for sure, it’s because the ticking is so similar to the beat of the drums in his head. Either way, just as important as the clocks are, to the Master, days. Ninety-one days in a quarter, one-hundred and eighty-one days in a half, two-hundred and seventy-three days in three quarters and three hundred and sixty-five days in a whole.

The last time a monumental moment had passed, Japan had burnt… another reason the Doctor wasn’t going to mention the date to the Master.

Of course being so important, he realised it all by himself. Martha’s mother had commented to the Doctor a few days later about how the Master hadn’t made a huge song and dance about it as usual. The Doctor had just smiled sadly. What she didn’t know couldn’t hurt her.

The Doctor knows though. He can remember the pure anguish of being pulled between the years, backwards and forwards. He can remember cringing and curling up on the bed he’d been placed on in the cold, lonely room, his youth restored to him, but the memories and years of his true age weighing heavily on his mind.

More than that, he remembers being stripped, blindfolded and chained to the head of the bed while the Master stood by the wall staring at him, watching him. And he can remember the aching he’d felt as the Master had ghosted his fingers over his cock, never touching, but always teasing.

He’d tried. He’d tried so hard. But the moment he had relinquished his control, ever so slightly, the Master had hardened and fastened his strokes, he’d come. 

The door had clicked shut after that. He’d laid there for five hours, cold and naked, blindfolded and throbbing with desire. 

An hour after that, the Master had turned on hidden speakers in the room and the sound of screams from Japan’s taping could be heard all around him.

Martha’s mother had been wrong. The Master had _certainly_ made a song and dance about it.

He sighs and rolls over, the artificial daylight of the new day starting to peek through under his bedroom door. He checks the clock on the wall and curses softly. He’s an hour late, and the Master’s still stuck in his bedroom.

The Doctor mutters his apologies as he opens the door, turning away without even catching a glimpse of the Master, and almost bolting to the kitchen. He doesn’t want to remember today, but he’s fairly sure the Master will.

~*~

The night is full of ups and downs for the Master. He realises the best thing about this only five minutes after cursing it, and then curses it again. He didn’t make a noise. None of exteriors changed in _any_ way, shape or form. He is the exact man he was before. He’s just better equipped now. And the Doctor knows none of it.

It has been _over_ half a year now, and the Doctor isn’t going to take one more day of his life away from him.

A _night_ however…

The Doctor need not know, of course. That would assist absolutely nothing.

Then he realises he’s still locked in the cell without a way out. The Doctor had made sure of that. He hadn’t even thought about smuggling something in, because, truly, he’d already considered it as an option and discarded it by the wayside.

So he just grits his teeth and flops back on the bed, running through the things he’s going to do to the Doctor the next day. Perhaps this is for the best, really. He has more time to plan this way.

~*~

The drums have infected the Doctor too. The Master only notices because it has become routine now. Every morning when the Doctor comes to open his little room, the beeping is exactly the same. Beep-beep-beep-beep. Seven-Six-Four-Three. Oh yes, he knows the combination. Which would be very helpful if he _wanted_ to get in the room. For getting out, it really isn’t.

He joins the Doctor in the kitchen, and doesn’t speak a word, although he knows the Doctor is expecting it. The dull look in his eyes tells him that he’s certainly taken note of the days, and the slightly stiff posture reminds the Master deliciously that one word would make the Doctor crumble. He also knows that if he _does_ say something, a word might slip out to show the Doctor just how much he remembers now (all of it) and that simply will not do.

So he plays the little trust game he’s set up over the last almost two hundred days and just butters his toast in silence, staring and watching the Doctor as he takes tiny nibbles of the peanut butter on his toast.

It’s only when the Doctor leaves for his shower that the Master relaxes and begins to put the plan into place. 

Mentally he lays out the tools he’s acquired over the last half year and runs a finger over each one, feeling a thrill shoot through his spine. Finally.

~*~

Once the water shuts off on the shower, the Doctor knows something’s amiss. He can tell from the way the bathroom door is open just a crack. He knows because the bathmat on the floor is slightly crumpled. The biggest clue is that his clothes are missing.

His jacket, shirt, coat, underwear and most importantly, his pants. 

_Shit_. 

He’s grown accustomed to the Master’s little practical jokes. If anything, he’s condoned them because they’re nothing in comparison to what he _could_ be doing. And, if torturing the Doctor just a little is an outlet for the Master’s rage, then so be it. But today his nerves are frayed thin because the memories just won’t stop, and he can’t handle anything the way he normally does.

But he has to do something, so he shrugs, grabs a towel to dry himself off (and cover up) with and passes through his bedroom to try and find the Master (or at least where he’s left his clothes). 

Then the next problem arises. The door is locked. The second problem is that when he reaches for his sonic screwdriver, he realises that it was in his coat pocket and is therefore also gone. The third problem comes just as he’s physically trying to take the door off its hinges, and the power and lights go off completely.

~*~

The first thing the Master does is find the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver. Easy enough, really, because the Doctor had figured that it was as harmless as instruments came – less harmful than a _real_ screwdriver – if it landed in the Master’s possession and had kept it on him without being locked to isomorphic.

How handy.

With this tool and his knowledge, the Master bites his tongue between his teeth and sets the screwdriver to a particular setting, reversing the polarity of the neutron flow in the handcuffs. They snap together for a second and he bites his tongue even harder, nudging the polarity just so, ensuring there is no longer a magnetic attraction nor repulsion whatsoever. He doesn’t appreciate having metal implanted under his skin, but he’s sure he’ll get it out eventually (or have it come out in the wash of regeneration. Either way.)

Then he pockets the tool and begins his rummage. He’d broken into numerous rooms within _days_ of being on this broken down old wreck and discovered the laser screwdriver. Not knowing what it was, he’d just shrugged and chucked it in with the rest of the Doctor’s junk. The Master looks back at himself these past months and scowls. Idiot.

It’s still fairly close to the front of the junked up room, but he has to toss around a few hairdryers, hair crimpers, numerous half-empty tubs of gel and something that looks suspiciously like lubricant before he unearths it.

Grinning, the Master grabs it and tucks it into his waistband. Oh, this is going to be _brilliant_. And the best part is, the Doctor wont suspect a thing.

As he turns to exit the room, two things catch his eye. One is a dusty riding crop that looks like it’s been used quite a few times (on actual horses, he supposes, from the presence of animal hair on the leather) and the other is a glinting pair of handcuffs, the rings bent in what looks like a quite uncomfortable fashion, a key sticking out of the lock.

He picks up both, smiles, and exits the room, remembering to lock it with his screwdriver as he turns away. Whistling softly, he tucks the crop under his waistband under his suit jacket, the screwdriver in its proper place, and the cuffs in his inside pocket.

In his room he finds the book he’s used over the last few months and takes it with him back to the kitchen, along with the Doctor’s pile of clothes. Tucking the clothes under the table, he gives a little grin of glee at his own brilliance and opens the book to exactly the right page and passage. The Doctor has even book-marked it with one of those little pink tabs. Very kind of him. 

_Seraphim_ , page 39. 

Picking the spot of black darkness in the very back of his mind, the Master crosses his legs, relaxes, focuses and starts to chant the verses over and over. _‘“Above Him stood the Seraphim; each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two,’_ he pauses, _‘… he flew.”’_

After thirty-nine times, the Master’s eyes fly open and he notices that every part of the TARDIS has shut down. Even the hum of the living organism’s life-force is dulled to below a whisper. He has control of _everything_ again. And it is glorious.

In the console room, the world is blood red, a warm burgundy colour. The Master is pleased with his creation, changing the Doctor’s boring sea-coloured room into the throbbing beauty it is now. The memories of converting her into a paradox machine still makes him lick his lips happily, like a cat that has just devoured a plate of cream.

He places his tools of choice by the door, sets the scene around one particular pillar, lays the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver in just the right position and pulls on a pair of black leather gloves. 

_Then_ he walks down the corridor, swinging the handcuffs in one hand backwards and forth on one finger.

~*~

The Doctor is just starting to get the second pin out of the door when it comes swinging back in his face. Bowled completely off balance, he lands at the Master’s feet, sharp pain shooting through his right arm. The pain isn’t helped in any way when he tries to concentrate on activating the Master’s handcuffs and is left scrambling for a psychic foothold as the bridge he expected to be there doesn’t present. Then his own arms are pulled behind his back, pressure laid on the tendons in his wrists as the bent rings push into his flesh.

Neither Time Lord make a sound until they reach the console room, and the Doctor gasps. Nothing looks out of place except the lighting, the only backup power on the ship economised by red-light gletech.

‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ Asks the Master as he fastens the Doctor’s wrists behind a coral column and rummages through the clothing of his ex-captor, pulling out a pair of normal handcuffs and ringing them through the Doctor’s ankles.

‘It’s a monstrosity. She sounds sick. What have you _done_?’

‘Tch, not right now. Just _wait_.’ He pauses, picking up the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver and tossing it from hand to hand. ‘But then again, patience never was one of your mass conglomeration of virtues.’

The Master considers the sonic screwdriver for a second before placing it down where the Doctor could never reach, even if his ankles _were_ loose. Then he picks up the riding crop and considers it, rubbing his gloved fingers up and down the leather. 

‘Figure it out,’ he says with a smile. ‘Use that gigantic brain that you so love to flaunt to those little pet humans and just figure it out.’

‘Control override. You manually overrode the system.’ 

The Master’s eyebrows shoot up and he gives the Doctor a slap on the ass for that piece of stupidity. ‘Like you caught me doing after you went off to mope on Cizal IV? I don’t think so. Besides, I think you should give your handiwork a _little_ more credit than that.’

He considers his fingernails and brushes at his suit in an attempt to stay patient in lieu of the Doctor’s silence. Then he snaps.

‘ _Figure. It. Out._ So much for being one of the two greatest minds on Gallifrey. A child could’ve figured it out by now.’

The Doctor’s little flinch at the mention of Gallifrey brings a smile to the Master’s face.

‘Ahh, Gallifrey. You never _did_ tell me what it was like burning that dusty old place.’ He pulls up a chair. ‘Tell me, Doctor. How did it _feel_?’

The Doctor just gapes, his mouth searching for the words he’s trying to say. ‘…Gallifrey? How?’

‘Oh, Doctor. Did you _really_ think I’d forgotten forever?’ He shakes his head like a teacher would a naughty student. ‘No, no, no.’ He smiles. ‘Tell me.’

‘I didn’t feel anything.’

When the slap comes this time, the Doctor expects it to be on his body, not his cheek. But the sensors on his face break out in fire as the leather hits them, blood flying onto the crop from the graze it leaves. The Master reaches over to the side of the chair and picks up a large book, flipping through it aimlessly as the Doctor watches.

As soon as he hears the sharp intake of breath, he allows himself to look up.

‘A verbal trigger from way back when you controlled the Valiant. You couldn’t move the TARDIS between the two points but you could hack into it.’ The Doctor groans and the Master just grins, waiting for him to realise the true brilliance of his plan. ‘Just in case everything went to pot, you set it up so that you could forget your memories and wait until the right moment to set it off.’

‘Which is right here. Right. Now. Go on.’

‘You shut down the power, shut down the locking system, which gives you access to everything.’ The Doctor mentally kicks himself for overlooking this. ‘But you need it to be consistent. How can you stand here with the power locked down without the verbal trigger still running? It should have stopped once the initial trigger was set off. The power should have come back.’

The Master scowls and gives him a smaller slap. ‘For a human, maybe. But I’m _not_ human. I have a much larger intelligence than one of _those_ stupid apes. I can control the psychic field I created. What good would a temporary trigger do if there were only going to be two of us on your rickety old TARDIS? It’s in my brain. It’s been there since the beginning, since I almost accidentally tripped it whilst reading the book you so carelessly left lying around six weeks into my captivity.’

‘That was _you_?’

The Master stares at him in exasperation. ‘Honestly, Doctor. I didn’t think you trusted me _that_ much. Of course it was me. Who else would it have been? But it didn’t work fully because I only skimmed the words. It’s not my fault your eragonistic accelerator was already full of holes.’

‘Actually,’ interrupts the Doctor, ‘it was only like that because you turned my ship into a paradox machin-’

The Master is beginning to remember how handy whips are as he sends a shot across the Doctor’s chest.

‘You always have been slack with your repairs.’ 

The Master stands, brushing down his suit pants and smoothing his jacket.

‘Where are we?’

‘I thought you’d never ask.’ The Master grins and flings the door open to show the busy hive of the Malcassairo Conglomeration. ‘Malcassairo, back in its shining days of glory. It sits on the edge of space and time, on the edge of the Silver Devastation, the biggest rift in time and space.’ 

‘Why here? Why come back?’

‘Because,’ the Master grins. ‘Here is where my TARDIS is.’ The Doctor’s mouth drops open. ‘Oh come on, Doctor. I fought in the Time War. In a TARDIS. Where my Chameleon Arch is. How did you _think_ I became human? It had to exist _somewhere_ neither of us would die. I just ended up here, human and bewildered, stumbling out of a pillar on the edge of time and space itself.’ The Master’s lips pull up in a sneer. ‘I felt it when you destroyed Gallifrey, Doctor. I didn’t know what it was, but it was there. Deep in the recesses of my mind, a little burn of triumph. Those hypocritical idiots gone forever.’

He steps toward the Doctor, ghosting his gloved fingers along the Doctor’s skin. ‘Do you remember a year ago in both our personal timelines? Before we weaved the lines together throughout time, a solid constant, you and I, through the rips and stitches we both made that final day? Do you remember my celebration? Half a year as Master of all. The brilliance of it all.’ He sucks in a deep breath. ‘Ooh, I remember how you shuddered as you tried to resist.’ His fingers trace downwards now, gliding over the inside of the Doctor’s thigh and feeling the cock harden without much prompting at all. Satisfied, he raises his other hand, cupping the Doctor’s face, expression full of faux sympathy.

‘How I wish I could be there when handsome Jack comes rushing to your rescue, when Martha’s face contorts and crumples.’ He tightens his lips in mock sadness. ‘But sacrifices must be made.’

With one motion, he slaps the dematerialisation settings on the console and coordinates them with his laser screwdriver before bounding towards the door, gathering his belongings as he goes. 

‘Enjoy the ride,’ he grins and reactivates the power, pressing a button on the screwdriver and dematerialising the TARDIS. 

As soon as the blue box is gone, the Master leans against the Greek pillar settled against a wall and dips his hand into his pocket, fishing out the black mobile phone. He toys with it for a second before hitting Martha Jones’ number on the speed dial.

He waits until she picks up before smiling broadly. ‘Hello, Martha Jones. Been a long time since we last met.’

_“Maidens like moths, are ever caught by glare, And Mammon wins his way where seraphs might despair.”  
\- Lord Byron_


	6. Epilogue: Clouds of Fire

_My son you sleep in clouds of fire / and it’s good and that’s right  
\- Scale by Interpol_

As soon as the TARDIS arrives outside the Hub, Jack Harkness is in front of it, eyes scanning the words ‘police public call box’ with a bittersweet smile. He barely notices Martha’s appearance beside him, doesn’t question how she knew that the TARDIS had materialised.

All he does is take one look at her anxious face and slams his newly cut key into the lock, twisting hard and pushing the door open with a similar force to that of the assembled hordes of Genghis Khan. 

He immediately regrets it, turning back and nudging Martha away with a single look and the words ‘one minute, please.’

Pasted on Jack’s face, the moment he does re-enter the TARDIS (locking the door firmly behind him) is a look very, very similar to one that reads _‘I told you so.’_ But he tries to cover it as much as possible, pain and that nagging, incredibly painful ( _very-very-very-minute-really_ ) feeling of arousal. 

‘Jack.’

‘Don’t. Just… Don’t.’ 

The anger in Jack's voice is not something the Doctor wants to combat and he knows he has to wait for Jack to calm down before he’ll get any sense out of him. When silence ensues, Jack grabs the sonic screwdriver (just out of the Doctor’s reach, more’s the pity, and he’s tried, oh, he’s tried) and begins to sonic the bonds loose, tossing him his clothes and turning away to give the Doctor some slice of dignity as he dresses. 

‘Does Martha know?’ Asks Jack quietly, trying to keep his anger under control. 

‘I don’t know, he took the phone with him.’ The Doctor squeezes his eyes shut, rubbing at them as he bustles uselessly around the console. ‘Have you seen her lately?’

‘She’s just outside. I closed the door so she wouldn’t see you…’ His jaw tightens again and he cuts himself off. ‘Like that.’

The Doctor stops whatever useless task he’s doing and turns to Jack, looking him square in the eyes. ‘Thank you.’ He sighs. ‘I’m sorry, Jack. I’m an idiot.’ Rubbing his hands up his face and into his hair, he grimaces. ‘I shouldn’t have tried. I’m sorry.’

‘What else could you have done?’ Jack sighs also. ‘I know. I’m sorry too.’

He walks over to the TARDIS doors, opening them to Martha who is now leaning against the box, sunning herself in the wintry Cardiff light. _‘What an oxymoron’_ thinks Jack briefly, before yelling out to her, calling her back into the TARDIS. Oxymoron’s seem to be following him. In truth, he _is_ an oxymoron. A walking, talking, living English term.

The Doctor gets the hint that he’s wanted for a serious conversation and stops his aimless fiddling, sitting down on one of the benches (the Master’s, ironically enough, though the others don’t need to know that) and closing his eyes.

‘Okay…’ ventures Martha, completely in the dark. ‘What’s happened? Where’s the Master? I got a call from him ten minutes ago, and that’s it. Just a load of codswallop and threats… but something’s gone wrong, hasn’t it?’

The Doctor swallows, opens his mouth and explains it all. Vaguely. Missing out _quite_ a few of the more important details and focusing on the mere technicalities.

As soon as the tale is done, the faces of his two companions contort as they try to keep their emotions in check and he’s escorted rather firmly to the infirmary by the two humans.

‘Firstly,’ says Martha as the Doctor unbuttons his shirt, ‘I’m going to test for poisons. He’s been cooking for you? And you _ate_ it?’ Her eyebrows rise so high that the Doctor swears they’ll get stuck in her hairline.

‘Oh give me _some_ credit. I ran most of the usual scans four out of five times. On random occasions so he wouldn’t get an idea that there was a pattern and poison me on the fifth time. And I checked myself out after every meal-’ Jack snorts, but the Doctor just continues, giving him a pointed look. ‘-to look for poisons and traces of other malignant nasties.’

‘And yet you failed to notice the Master,’ mutters Jack under his breath as he inspects the Doctor’s hearts and respiratory systems, trusting that the Gallifreyan machinery is telling him the truth when they say the Doctor’s health is fine. 

As soon as they’ve run every scan they can find in the mess of an infirmary room, Martha begins a physical, taking instructions from the Doctor whenever she misses something to do with his biology that’s different to human. She aids the skin grazes on his face and chest, and examines his torso as a whole. Then Jack coughs, gesturing to the lower half of the Doctor’s anatomy.

‘I can’t,’ rebuts Martha, as the Doctor simultaneously calls out ‘there’s nothing wrong down there.’

Jack just smirks slightly (although on retrospect, _none_ of this is funny) and rolls his eyes.

‘Satisfied I’m not going to die from the Master’s ill deeds any time soon?’

‘No,’ mutters Jack quietly, but he turns away to fiddle with machinery as the Doctor pulls on a shirt and his jacket.

The trio head back to the console room, Jack resolute that he’s definitely staying with the Doctor this time, and Martha wondering what the Doctor will say when she tells him she wants to travel again.

But both are ushered out of the TARDIS with a murmur of ‘I need to be alone for a while. Please. I’ll come back.’

‘You better,’ yells Jack bitterly, tossing the Doctor his mobile phone. ‘Pick up, or so help me I will use all the alien tech I have at Torchwood's diposal to find you.’

‘I believe you,’ the Doctor sighs with a half-smile and shuts the TARDIS doors before dematerialising into the vortex to just… sit.

Sit and clean up, that is. The TARDIS now looks like a bomb hit it after the Master used that mental trigger and a lot of the wiring is fused down, looking like a melting pot of plastic, metal and organic matter. He’s not sure exactly how much was caused by the Master, but either way it needs attending to.

That’s when the distress signal comes, and the TARDIS floods with red light for the second time in so many hours.

~*~

The Master’s TARDIS is no longer matt black. Now it gleams with the kind of shining plasticity that can be found on Earth-style iPods. The time rotor’s central column reaches to infinity, reds and oranges entwined like fire. Below, he looks up and grins, the black abyss above him like the night sky, like the never-ending oblivion.

Like freedom. 

He can taste it in the air, feel it on his skin. The air in his TARDIS is oh-so _different_ to that on the Doctor’s box of junk. Mostly because it doesn’t have that irritating, airy, bubbly atmosphere in constant flux around each and every room.

The brilliant thing about the Master’s orbit around Nuage is that it is incredibly rapid. It’s about eleven times the speed that the Earth moon orbits around Earth, and fourteen times the speed that the two Kalgaeron moons orbit around Kalgaeros. The most excellent thing about this speed is that it gives him a twenty-four hour non-stop viewing of the planet’s destruction.

This little party was planned to the best of his ability (which is a great deal, considering), every contingency worked out, the complete chemistry and physics finely tuned until there were no flaws whatsoever in his workmanship.

Every hour he would emit slight amounts of flammable particles into the atmosphere in small bouts, corrupting the evaporated h2o so that it rained to the planet. The particles were not poisonous to the inhabitants of Nuage (mostly humanoid bug-like things with pristine white antennae on their heads); it merely made them sleepy and increasingly thirsty, filling their bodies with flammable liquid.

For weeks the Master slowly dehydrated the planet, putting every single inhabitant and organism in drought.

…and then, one day he… slips, gently sending a catalytic fireball into the atmosphere, letting it drift into the dried-out air, watching as the fire floats gracefully to the ground, like fireflies, flitting in the earth-light.

When the flames hit the ground, the fires spread like… well, if disease may spread like wildfire, then wildfire may spread like disease. The world explodes into flame, and the screams are beautiful, sending chills up the Master’s spine as he stands, a black-clad figure encompassed between two fire-red points. 

The word ‘glorious’ is overused. Often in the wrong context, with the wrong connotation and with a heavy stigma. 

_Glorious: Adj._  
1\. Conferring or advancing glory: a glorious achievement.   
2\. Characterized by great beauty and splendor; magnificent: a glorious sunset.   
3\. Delightful; wonderful: had a glorious visit with old friends. 

The word in the fleeting quote _“To die for love... what could be more glorious?”_ is not glorious. Who would die for love? He wrinkles up his nose.

But looking down at his creation, the Master smiles and cocks his head to one side. No, no. _This_ is glorious.

Glorious, indeed.

~*~

Distress signals sound like pain, and fear. They sound like the crying of the vanquished as they lie, defeated, at the feet of their captors, pleading for mercy, tears running down their faces. They sound like the sirens of a war-torn planet, signalling that race upon race are once again attacking each other in a civil war of incivility. More than that, they sound like the racking sobs of a loved one too far away to touch and comfort, but just close enough to see, experience, and understand. They are the essence of grief, the indicator that something is not _right_ , like the pain receptors sending electrical signals to the brain, shooting up the reflex arc to pull away, pull away!

But the Doctor presses a button, adjusts the stabiliser and yells out to companions that aren’t there to hold on as he twists it just a bit too far. The TARDIS jolts to the side, almost rearing back from the destination. Then there’s silence, a ghost of smoke and the vague sound of dust raining from the ceiling. The Doctor picks himself up off the floor where he’s crumpled, his fingers catching on the grating where it’s worn down from a small chain grinding against it. He flinches as the rough metal cuts him and sucks on his finger thoughtfully as he stares at the spot.

Trying not to think too hard about the Master, he raises his eyes to the scanner and strokes it with a non-injured finger, trying to get a better picture. Audio too, that’d be nice. He kicks the TARDIS, more of a nudge than anything actually aggressive, but she responds by cutting the image completely and giving him too-loud audio.

The screaming makes him think of Gallifrey and Japan. It makes him think of Toclaphane and Earth, the man that used to be his best friend, once upon a time, many, many years ago, standing on high _laughing_. He hits a random button, any he can possibly find, and the sound goes dead. All he can hear now is the soft buzzing sound of the snow-like pictures on the monitor and his imagination as it replays the screaming over and over again.

He closes his eyes once, twice, braces himself, and opens the double doors.

Memories hurt, and this one twice so. The screaming and light, the burning and flickering, the flames and fire and ice, and the hovering object that hangs near the atmospheric entrance makes him remember Earth burning… the first time. It makes him think of Stangmore Prison and the Keller Machine, and that makes him think of…

_‘We could fight. Across the constellations if that’s what you want. But not on Earth.’_

It had been his words, his inexcusable turn of phrase and that’s what the Master is doing. And this planet is suffering for it. He doesn’t even know what it is. Didn’t bother to check, just heard the signal and came to investigate. Sighing and rubbing his eyes, the Doctor walks back to the console and the scanner, stroking the TARDIS gently with one hand in an attempt to convince her to talk to him again. Planet Nuage in the Deux XI system.

Planet Nuage is on fire. Not a quick explosion caused by a well-aimed explosive, no, that at least would have been a quick death, Nuage has been carefully set alight, each country a-fire, fires spreading across every scrap of land, devouring whatever they can. 

The Doctor opens the double doors of the TARDIS and looks down, watching as fires leap to reach the sky, smog from the masses of smoking and charred ground rising in the air. And a teardrop falls onto a world burning, dying with thirst and pain. Onto ash and rain and smoke comes rain from the Doctor’s eyes to a world he could never save.

_Black flowers blossom / fearless on my break / teardrops on the fire.  
\- Teardrop by Massive Attack_


End file.
